KARACHI (Web Desk) – The government plans to more than halve the buyback tariffs for net-metered solar power to save Rs4.3 trillion ($15.1 billion) over the next ten years, according to people privy to the matter.
Authorities at energy ministry are working on a new solar policy that looks to change the current net-metering regime under which the cash-strapped government is buying back solar-generated electricity from domestic, commercial and industrial producers at Rs27 per kilowatt hour (kWh).
The buyback rates for large scale grid-connected solar plants like Quaid-e-Azam Solar Power (Pvt.) Limited, Pakistan’s first 100-megawatt solar utility set up by Punjab government, ranges between Rs9 and Rs11.
“The government is proposing to remove this anomaly and offer almost a uniform buyback rate for net-metered solar power in line with global standard practice,” said a Pakistani energy ministry official who is privy to the policymaking discussions but cannot share them with media.
He said officials at the ministry’s power division will present a revised solar policy to the federal cabinet “within a month,” proposing to reduce the buyback price for net-metered solar power by more than 60 percent to Rs10 per kWh.
The government plans to link the buyback rates with the national base tariff.
“The government is encouraging these domestic and other distributed solar producers and has allocated a quantum for them in the IGCEP (Indicative Generation Capacity Expansion Plan),” the official said.
“What this new net-metering policy will define is the question that at what rate the government should buy power from these distributed producers. We are working this out.”
The move would help the government save Rs4.3 trillion ($15.1 billion) in the decade to come, he added.